Comments on: Lou Brock, ’77 Record-Breaker in . . . (Yet Another) Nagging Question

By: fredbeene

fredbeene — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:57:52 +0000

It would be interesting to see where everyone stand if you only count their stats for games when they were actually a lead off hitter.

Why isn’t Al Bumbry or Omar Moreno on this list!

By: Eric Enders

Eric Enders — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:58:21 +0000

17. This trivia stumped me good. I was thinking that the Iorg brothers would be an answer if you counted them as one player. Darth Iorg, say. But it turns out even that doesn't work.

By: Ennui Willie Keeler

Ennui Willie Keeler — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:21:19 +0000

16. There were two answers. I'm assuming that you forgot about George Bell. If anyone from that era played for the Celtics and the Raiders there might be more answers.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:48:04 +0000

15. 14 : Boggs was certainly an effective leadoff guy, though slow as a glacier. Nails wasn't around very long, but for a couple (suspicious) years he was about the closest anybody ever came to Rickey. Yeah, I finally broke down and went to bb-ref to figure out the only guy to play with Ainge and Bo Jackson. It was surprising because I picture the guy as being a lifelong Jay. Further obscuring the answer for me was the fact that the team he played on with Bo was not the Royals, but a team I associate less strongly with Bo (the White Sox). (There were almost two answers to the question but '81 Blue Jay Juan Berenguer missed being Bo's teammate by one year, I think.)

By: Ennui Willie Keeler

Ennui Willie Keeler — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:15:57 +0000

14. Hamilton was a leadoff guy according to Bill James. A couple of other guys that might be mentioned are Nails Dykstra and (I know you might not like this one) Boggs. Did you ever figure out the answer to my trivia question?

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:11:24 +0000

13. 12 : D'oh! Now I wonder if Billy Hamilton batted leadoff. I assume he did, but we see how those assumptions have worked out so far. Anyway, the elimination of Robinson and Collins from the conversation certainly helps clear the way for Raines to take his place just below Henderson.

By: Ennui Willie Keeler

Ennui Willie Keeler — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:40:31 +0000

12. Collins didn't bat leadoff either.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:19:55 +0000

11. 10 : Wow. OK, so I guess Jackie Robinson joins Honus, Ty, and Morgan in the hypothetical leadoff guy universe. Robinson batting cleanup surprises me, what with all the other sluggers on those Dodger teams (Snider, Hodges, Campanella, Furillo). I mean, it's not like he was on a team without other middle of the lineup options.

By: Eric Enders

Eric Enders — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:58:21 +0000

10. Great essay, and I vote for Raines.

Jackie Robinson, by the way, was a cleanup hitter. Thanks to the old scoresheets of Allan Roth, Branch Rickey’s statistician, Retrosheet was able to compile Jackie’s splits for his career. He actually batted leadoff less often than any spot except 8th or 9th.

http://www.retrosheet.org/jackie.htm

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:45:05 +0000

9. 8 : Good idea. Below is the list for runs created per game. I don’t think it’ll affect the “overall standings” much, but it does show two of my favorites, Robinson and Raines, in a good light, and it deals a further blow to Lou Brock. (By the way, you mentioned Ichiro, so I looked up his numbers in this stat and he’s right in the middle of the lofty pack at 6.5 runs created per game.)

1. Hamilton 7.7
2. Robinson 7.0
3. Rickey 6.8
4. Collins 6.6
4. Raines 6.6
6. Molitor 6.2
7. Biggio 5.9
7. Ashburn 5.9
9. Rose 5.8
10. Brock 5.2